How well are your kids dealing with & quote At Home Learning & quote?
Some things we've learned so far on how to optimize at Home Learning.
How well are your kids adapting to learning from home? If you're like us, we have 3 kids, ages 6-11, all now learning from home, online. At first, it seemed like things were going to go pretty well. We had a few problems with connectivity issues, but that seemed to improve quickly.
Then it was trying to keep the kids focused for the entire time. Our kids started to get bored. They would get into a class for a while, then get up, go into the kitchen and try not to go back. We’d catch them outside, playing video games, or doing anything not to be in class. We went from thinking about how easy it started to now having to watch them every 5 minutes. Then the hate for the classes set in. Our kids started not wanting to do the online classes at all. The fighting started, and we had to threaten to take things away - god forbid video games…! That got them right back into their chairs.
One of the primary things that we noticed was how antsy they would get. We realized that it was all this negative energy that they built up and weren’t burning off. Before, when at school, the kids would play outside before school, during recesses, and then after school before they came home. Now, the kids were sitting at home in front of a screen with all this energy building up with nowhere to burn it off.
So, we decided to try replicating our own day at school. We started getting the kids up 30 mins earlier. During this time, they’d get dressed, eat, and then go outside and go for a 5-minute run, shoot hoops where each had to make a minimum of 5 baskets each before they could come back in.
At lunch, we’d have them do the same activities outside. Even on wet days, they’d go out and stay active - Like at school. By the second day, it was clear that this was the solution to burning off all that pent up energy. Our kids were able to sit through their classes better and for much longer periods of time. Our kids weren’t fighting the process nearly as much after these activities.
Now, not everyone has the ability to run their kids outside as we do but, if you have stairs or can do any other form of activity, this may be a good solution. Our kids have way more energy than we do and getting outside for 15-20 mins a couple of times a day turned out great for them and helped us as parents become more active during this time of spending what seems like a lot more time inside.